Chip cards (smart cards or else integrated circuit cards) are used in many different application areas. For example in personal identification (identity cards, access cards, authorization cards), in data encryption (code cards), for personal use (bank chip cards, payment cards) and similar areas. Apart from costs, aspects involved in the design of chip cards and their production may also be durability or robustness, immunity to falsification and manipulation and also the desired functionality.
Chip cards usually consist of carrier layers, in which one or more semiconductor chips, the electronic “heart” of the chip card, are arranged.
One aspect of chip cards is their durability in practical use with respect to stresses caused by the environment and by people, that is to say for example the card owner. These include, for example, temperature fluctuations, chemical influences and mechanical deformation that occur during production and during the use or storage of the cards. Thermal stressing may also result in mechanical deformation, since temperature fluctuations cause material expansion or shrinkage, and this in turn can for example bend regions of the chip card.
The conventional structure of the chip card arrangement or the chip card module arrangement may adversely influence the mechanical stability, and consequently reduce the robustness of the chip card with respect to stresses.